In African American patients with osteoarthritis (OA), pain coping skills training (CST) improved pain coping abilities and management perceptions, but not pain severity, according to a report published in Pain.

Despite disproportionate OA pain and dysfunction, African American patients in the United States suffer from underrepresentation in trials examining cognitive and behavioral pain interventions. Investigators sought to gain more perspective on the cultural appropriateness of such therapeutic tools, hypothesizing that pain CST would significantly improve outcomes in this patient population.

Study strengths included a multicenter design, inclusion of more men than other studies, proactive participant recruitment, inclusion of veterans, and maintenance assessments using extended follow-up time.

“We believe these findings support the value of efforts to disseminate pain CST among

African Americans with OA, as a part of overall efforts to mitigate racial disparities in OA-related outcomes,” noted the authors. They recommended that future research explore adherence enhancement and treatment response factors while considering pain CST cost-effectiveness.